Interactive lighting effective devices, such as, for example, handheld LED glow sticks are popular portable electronic devices used for achieving interactive mass-scaled lighting effects in various venue events or mass gatherings, such as at a musical concert, a sporting event, a mass gathering, a church event, a political gathering, an educational institution convention, when the interactive lighting effect devices are being operated in a coordinated illuminating patterns to produce continuous illuminating visual effects on a mass scale. The interactive lighting effective devices, such as, the handheld LED glow sticks can be remote-controlled wirelessly under radio frequency signal broadcasts, by using a RF transmitter, a lighting controller and a proprietary control software on laptop or PC.
Traditional method of programming or configuring lighting effect patterns and sequences comprising of several steps for an interactive lighting effect device requires to write pattern-related data of lighting effects into a microcontroller (MCU) memory of each of the interactive lighting effect device ahead of time via wired connection such as, i.e. via a USB cable, in accordance with a pre-matched seating information of an user carrying the interactive lighting effect device at a concert venue prior to the interactive lighting effect device is being transported to the venue location. Therefore, in order to achieve a lighting effect performance for an entire venue event having many sophisticated or intricate lighting or illuminating sequences would certainly require to store a large amount of lighting control data inside the MCU memory for matching against the huge number of necessary lighting effect changes. In addition, all of the abovementioned steps for configuring lighting effect patterns/sequences are usually performed for each of the interactive lighting effect device one by one at a factory during the manufacturing phase/process of the interactive lighting effect devices. A set of the pre-programmed lighting effect data may include an identification information for each of the interactive lighting effect device, a corresponding pre-matched seating information assigned to the user carrying the interactive lighting effect device, and a corresponding lighting effect pattern data (which is a sequence of timed light effect data values comprising of specified illumination color for producing corresponding lighting effect). Upon completion of the above-mentioned programming configurations of each of the interactive lighting effect devices, they are required to be transported or shipped to the concert or event venue, whereby they are required to be placed one-by-one by hand at each of many assigned seating locations, respectively, and thus would take up a long time for completion. For example, an interactive lighting effect device with an interactive lighting effect device ID number of 2538491 has been assigned to Zone no. A, Row no. 2, Seat no. 5 and therefore must be placed at that particular seat, while another interactive lighting effect device with the interactive lighting effect device ID number of 2538492 has been assigned and must be placed to Zone no. A, Row no. 2, Seat no. 6, etc. Furthermore, any accidental misplacement or incorrect placement of any lighting effect device, i.e. an interactive light effect device belonging to seating zone B, row 6, seat number 2 misplaced to end up at seating zone B, row 7, seat 2, will lead to a lighting effect show having inferior or deteriorated visual quality by creating illuminating color blotches or anomalies. Moreover, because all of the lighting effect pattern sequence data had already being written into the memory of each interactive lighting effect device ahead of time during the manufacturing phase thereof and also that the configuring/programming of the lighting effect pattern sequence data requires to be performed under a tedious manual process (instead of an efficient automated process) requiring a lot of manpower, as a result, any spontaneous or dynamic illuminating effect changes cannot be realized or updated in time during the lighting effect show at the venue event.
Another conventional method for configuring the lighting effect wristbands has been described in US patent application publication number 20140184386 by Jason Charles Regler et. al, in which each seating zone is assigned a unique zonal address correspondingly-assigned wristbands, and the wristbands are programmed with the corresponding zonal address, with the address thereby allowing a light controller to target banks of wristbands for configuring on a selective sectional basis. However, the interactive lighting effect device, i.e. wristband, taught in the above patent application by Jason Charles Regler still requires to perform a step for pre-configuring or pre-assigning an unique zonal address to each corresponding wristband, and to write the zonal address to the memory thereof, done one by one. Furthermore, human labor is still required to place the wristbands near the corresponding zone region at the venue event, i.e. a kiosk at a particular entry point of the corresponding zone region according to a zone layout, to allow for programming at the point of sale or some other point via internet access. In addition, because the wrists have to be grouped in according to one corresponding zone region at the kiosk, thus severely limiting entry convenience for venue attendees when desiring to reach different zone regions inside the venue event when entering at one entry point.
Therefore, there is a need in the related art in providing a more efficient and flexible method for dynamically configuring lighting effect patterns and sequences for interactive lighting effect devices on a mass scale during a lighting effect show at a venue event.